"Only we've got to run like mad."
He seized Rufus by the hand and they shot free of the procession, up and
down dim and decorous streets, swerving round corners and past astonished
policemen whose "Now then, you young devils" was lost in the clatter of
their feet. Cosgrave gasped, but Robert's hold was relentless,
compelling. He could have run faster by himself, but somehow he could not
let Cosgrave go. "You've got to stick it," he hissed fiercely. "It's
only a minute."
Cosgrave had no choice but to "stick it." It did not even occur to him to
resist though his eyes seemed to be bulging out of his head and his lungs
on the point of bursting. But the reward was near at hand. There, at the
bottom of Griffith's Road, they could see it--the Green, unfamiliar with
its garish lights and the ghostly, gleaming tents.
"We've done it!" Robert shouted. "Hurrah--hurrah!"
They had, in fact, time to spare. The procession was still only half-way
down the High Street, a dull red glow, like the mouth of a fiery cave,
widening with every minute as though to swallow them. There was, indeed,
a disconcerting crowd gathered round the chief entrance, but Robert was
like a general, cool and vigorous, strung up to the finest pitch of
cunning. He wormed his way under the ropes, he edged and insinuated
himself between the idle and good-natured onlookers, with Cosgrave, tossed
and buffeted, but still in tow, struggling in the backwash.
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